Practical Training - Eilat, Israel

I have been doing my practical training in the southern city of Israel - Eilat.
Surrounding by amazing mountains and lovely coral reef bay and temperatures that rises to +40.

I was working in the National Center for Mariculture (NCM) which is the research institute of aquaculture in Israel. My task
was to improve the Denitrification Unit that
was developed in the institute.

Till 2005 the growth of fish made at sea by fish cages. Due to the rapid degradation of the coral reef conditions the cages were pulled out and a land base system was developed. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous which excreting by the fish causing growth of algae which blocks the sun light and the effect is a relatively fast death of coral reefs life.

To prevent nutrients flow to the sea the land system uses 2 processes: Nitrification and Denitrification. When the denitrification reactor was built, researchers noticed a unique process which breaks the Nitrate (NO3) to Nitrogen Gas (N2) called Anammox. Nitrification bacteria breaks the Ammonia (NH3) into Nitrite (NO2) and Nitrate and the Denitrification process breaks the Nitrate into nitrogen gas by using the anammox bacteria.



The development of the denitrification unit is part of the MERC project financed by the USAID. The main goal of the project is to developing a RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture system) which will reduce the impact of the Aqaba Bay sea life. The project is a cooperation between NCM in Eilat and MSS (The Marine Science Station) in Aqaba with technological assistant of the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa, Israel.

When i think at my 6 months of training i could definitely say i learned a lot. During my training i have been experiencing field work and sampling, laboratory work and office work while the experience of doing practical work do help you get more confident on your abilities and actions.